Crusaders vs Bulls Super Rugby Preview

The Bulls have won three out of the last five matches between them and the Crusaders but they have had home advantage in all three victories.

The Crusaders and the Bulls have played each other 20 times in Super Rugby since 1998 and the Crusaders have won 13 times including the Crusaders win the last time the teams met.

The Crusaders 13 victories translates to them winning 65% of their matches against the Bulls.

The average score when the Crusaders play the Bulls is Crusaders 33 Bulls 23.

This match will be the Crusaders first home match of the 2013 season and they have played the Bulls 9 times in Christchurch and won all nine matches.

The Bulls did pull off a victory over the Crusaders as Northern Transvaal but in modern day Super Rugby the Bulls have never won in the city.

When the Crusaders host the Bulls in Christchurch the average score is Crusaders 37 Bulls 15.

In terms of form the Crusaders have yet to win a match although they have only played two matches so far as they started a week later than everyone else.

Both matches were away from home and the Crusaders are known for being slow starters in Super Rugby.

The Bulls have made an almost perfect start to the season which is why they lead the South African conference. The Bulls also made history last week by beating the Blues for the first time in Auckland.

There are however two concerns for the Bulls. Whilst they will still take a lot of confidence from last week's Blues victory they also know that the Blues team they beat was not a first string Blues team.

The bigger problem for the Bulls is that it is well documented that the fatigue factor kicks in when traveling to New Zealand from South Africa so the Bulls can expect to fade in the final quarter as most teams do at Loftus at the same time in the game. The Bulls also have a short turn around as they played on Sunday while the Crusaders played on Friday.

The Bulls can however take much faith from the way that the Cheetahs beat the Highlanders in their second match on tour last weekend.

In selection terms the Bulls have made one injury enforced change for this match with Jurgen Visser earning his first Super Rugby start as replacement for Lionel Mapoe.

The Crusaders have also made one injury enforced change for the match but that was Tyler Bleyendaal replacing Tom Taylor on the bench.